How do we live in accordance with our deepest beliefs and aspirations? Do we develop a moral sensibility as we grow or are we born with it? This theme invites us to delve into one of life’s thorniest and most worthwhile topics.

1. In the Big Question, “Blank Disk or Software Included: Are We Born with Ethics and Morals?” Sofiy Inck explores the question of whether we are born innately understanding good and evil. She shares her own observations from babysitting and new scientific studies that she feels prove we are born with empathy that causes us to act for good. What do you think? Have you had any experiences that illustrate whether we are born with a moral sensibility? If so, does it tend to lead us to act upon our principles?

2. Each of the three feature articles tackle the topic of where ethics and morals come from. Is morality universal or relative, and therefore subject to change depending on culture or circumstance? One feature even asks whether humans are the only beings bestowed the power to make ethical judgments, or whether other animals are all born with the same rights to life. How do you make decisions in your daily life about how you act toward others? Do you use guidelines that have been passed down to you, or do you try to make decisions based solely on your experience in the world?

3. In his PerSpectives column, Lama Surya Das shares a Buddhist outlook on ethics. Beyond the stereotypical view of karma — what goes around comes around — Lama Surya also shows how good actions emerge from healthy living and habits. As he says: “Things reproduce in kind and not at random. Just as apple trees come from apple seeds and not from lemon seeds; our good habits and excellent character and destiny arise through repeating good, wholesome and helpful deeds, including our actions of body, speech, and mind.” In other words, the argument goes, we radiate goodness through habitual practice in all aspects of our selves, including our comportment in body, mind, and speech. What do you think about this view? Does this ring true in your life? Can people repeat bad habits but still make good decisions?

Ethics and Morality Group Guide

What are morals and where do they come from?

Is morality like the laws of physics, ironclad dicta from nature? Or is morality like language, where there is no “right answer” but different languages that different groups of people speak?

These are eternal questions with many answers. They have been intensely debated, from Aristotle to Kant to a bunch of college students in discussion at 5 AM when we all should have been studying. Today, much of the discourse is centered around the two most well-known paradigms: classical theism and atheism (see the glossary for a definition of all terms in italics). The journey in this article, reflecting my own journey, attempts to cast off prejudices and seek the truth. I conclude with a more unconventional answer that at last, in my eyes, has satisfactorily integrated the answers to these questions with our intuition and rendered purpose to my life.

Before starting the journey, let us assume that the actions of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust were “wrong.” Although this is often cited as a prototypical example of what is “wrong,” it does not answer the question of what “wrong” really means, nor does it explain where “wrong” comes from. This is what I seek to do in this article.

For many years, the theistic moral paradigm, derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition in particular, has been dominant in the canon of the West. Classically, morality is decreed by a supreme deity — that is, it exists as a law in the same sense as the laws of physics. Much as the laws of physics follow from experiment, the laws of morality follow from interpretation of the canonical texts of the Bible and the Gospels.

However, as a result of human free will, morality has an important difference with physical laws. While it is impossible to violate the laws of nature, humans can violate moral laws. Although the law of gravity prevents us from jumping to the moon, we may choose whether to follow moral laws. However, by the theist tradition those traditions will be judged decisions in worlds to come.

Centrally, classical theism is universalist. In a universalist moral scheme, if two people have different opinions about the morality of an action, both cannot be right — there’s only one right answer. Similarly, if two cultures have different standards for morality, both cannot be correct (in fact, maybe both are incorrect!). This is just as if two people calculate the gravitational force between two objects differently: only one person can be correct, because there is only one answer.

The theist view is often critiqued for being irreconcilable with science. In return, backers of classical theism will attempt to reconcile it with science, often successfully. For argument’s sake, this article will accept that classical theism may be reconciled with science; however, there are other key weaknesses of classical theism.

Man has discovered scientifically observable, testable, and replicable explanations for many physical phenomena, ranging from gravity to genetics. In the case of gravity, our knowledge has progressed from an abstract sense of a force causing things to drop, to a simple mathematical formula given by Newton, to a better understanding of quantum and relativistic effects of gravity.

Moral laws cannot be tested in this sense. In the classical theist paradigm, moral laws result solely from the reading of one holy text. There are three major holy texts for Abrahamic theists: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran. However, universalism decrees that, when they conflict on morality, they can’t all be right! In classical theism, most people rely on the text that they have been taught from birth, but why should one accept blindly that the text that they are born with is correct and the others are wrong? Blind acceptance does not do anything to help humankind. Had Copernicus merely accepted that the universe rotated around the Earth, had the Founding Fathers accepted the political state of affairs in Colonial America, the physical and mental condition of mankind would be far worse. Moreover, the concept that one believes something just because their parents believe something is to me repulsive: one of the fundamental and good principles of our society is that one should be able to set a totally divergent course from his or her parents if he or she chooses, in order to lead a better life. Any religion that teaches blind acceptance of a tradition just because of parental belief is at loggerheads with this principle.

This is certainly not to say that the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran are without moral worth. The teachings of the prophets and their moral principles are certainly worth understanding and, perhaps, if observations of the world indicate that they lead to good ends, worth following. However, it would be necessary to understand why they lead to good ends, rather than simply to blindly accept them.

Of course, not all forms of theism teach blind acceptance, hence the careful use of the term “classical theism.” In response to this critique, defenders of theism may draw on other forms of theism, but these forms of theism are often in fact closer to the third form of moral philosophy, yet to be introduced.

Theism has been the dominant paradigm in the Western tradition since the Roman era. However, since the Scientific Revolution, atheism has also won many followers. It is difficult to single out one system of morals, as there are many that fall under the umbrella term “atheist.” But without any sort of deity, without anything outside of the laws of physics, how can there be good?

The laws of mathematics demonstrate the difficulty of defining what is “good” in a system entirely based on natural laws. We examine Euclidean (high school) geometry as a case. Every fundamental principle (“axiom”) of Euclidean geometry can be found in an appendix of your high school geometry textbook. Every theorem of Euclidean geometry, no matter how complicated, follows by application of these axioms. But can we speak of any Euclidean result as “good” or “bad”? We can speak of geometric results as aesthetically pleasing — “beautiful” — but beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it is not a “good” of the geometric system. Because the Euclidean system itself simply exists in nature, there is no “good.”

In the same sense, if the universe and everything in it, including us, follows solely by the laws of nature, how can there be good or bad? There can be good or bad in the eye of a beholder of the universe, but we are not beholders of the universe, only elements, in the same way that a triangle is not a beholder of geometry. But according to atheism, such a beholder of the universe does not exist.

There are elements of atheism that may be inspiration for the moral paradigms that we will develop, however. Many atheist traditions teach supremacy of science. We see them as correct in presuming that the scientific method of observation is perhaps the most, if not the only, reliable tool in our kit. To develop a different moral philosophy, we may use this as a foundation for trying to understand ourselves.

Much of what we are as beings can be explained by science. Application of the methods of science can explain the evolution of the universe, according to the known laws of physics and mathematics, from the Big Bang until recently. Science provides explanation for development of galaxies, stars, heavy elements, planets, the formation of life, and evolution of species. And yet science seems to singularly fail at explaining human reason. This force, though difficult to define, separates humans from animals. It includes human consciousness — rather than just react in accordance with our instincts, we can actually think and make decisions — and with it the ability to develop morality systems. The ability to engage in conscious thought makes us realize this unique ability.

Not only is reason unexplained by current science, this paper considers human reason unexplainable by science. It may appear faulty to claim something as unexplainable, given how much was not understood until science discovered it. In the days of Kepler, who could have predicted the physics of Einstein? However, there is no presumption of progress in science. Currently science is incapable of answering questions about the origins of morality, and there are not even tools to answer these sorts of questions. Of course if science eventually provides an explanation, we must as good scientists reassess our conclusions. But for now, the state of science leaves us with the hypothesis that reason and its accompanying morality is a supernatural force, a force operating along axes different from those familiar physical axes, a force that allows us to accurately feel purpose in life.

These lines of thought are characteristic of Deism. Deism includes a belief in some sort of God, but in contrast to classical theism, that belief in God is based on application of human reason and science, rather than on divine revelation. Deism leads to a profound moral philosophy that explains and incorporates elements of both classical theism and atheism, and leads to an understanding of morality that integrates with our intuition.

Deism was born and flourished in the Enlightenment, in the 17th and 18th centuries, primarily in Europe and North America (see the page on Deism from Religious Tolerance.org for more information). Many of the founding fathers of the United States considered themselves to be deists, or believed in elements of deism as parts of their personal moral philosophies. Examples include Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. Besides a lens from which to understand our own morality, deism offers a useful window into the historical thought behind the founding of our country.

Deism is based upon the foundational principle that reason is a good thing. We view every human as a recipient of the gift of reason, the gift that allows us to come up with our own ideas, to discover what is right and what is wrong. Unlike the force of observation, reason is a force of ideas.

When talking about reason, it makes sense to discuss the ideas of good and bad. The supernatural force that imparted this nature into us had a purpose in giving this gift to us. Since human reason is good, the purpose must be to further the reason of all humankind. Actions for this purpose are right and actions against it are wrong, which is consistent with our natural feeling that actions such as genocide are wrong.

Since our actions can be affected by environmental and genetic factors, all people’s actions do not produce equally good results. Nonetheless, in this exposition of Deism, the existence of reason itself is a good thing. Furthermore, reason is binary: all objects either possess reason, or lack it. The binary presence of this gift in a person makes us all equal in a spiritual sense. Whereas environmental and genetic factors are of course responsible for human conduct, they are physical forces and it does not make sense to speak of them as good or bad. They just are. They do not affect the fundamental goodness of human reason. The presence of reason justifies the statement that, yes, in a deep sense, all men are created equal.

The principle that all men are created equal allows some logical development of Deist morality. It becomes easy to explain in more basic terms why the Holocaust was bad. No human has any more inherent worth than any other human, and human reason is a good thing, so we may call murder, let alone Holocaust, wrong.

There are exceptions to the general rule that the destruction of human reason is wrong. In the case of two of modern history’s exemplary evildoers, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden, the destruction of reason is justified. While the inherent capacity to reason, for any being, including these two, is inherently good, in these two cases the goodness is corrupted by experiential and genetic factors, which lead to morally flawed ideas. The danger posed by these individuals necessitated that great effort be made to prevent further commission of evil.

Since exercise of reason is dependent on information, and in that sense is a science, it is impossible to know for sure that something is wrong, because it is impossible to know if our interpretation of information is correct. This is just as it is impossible to know whether gravity holds in all cases, but the mere fact that every time we drop an object it falls suggests as to what this law of nature really is. In the same way, the mere fact that we have observed so many times the exercise of reason by so many people suggests the fundamental moral law that all men are created equal, as equally reasoning beings. Thus, deism falls in between universalism and its antonym, relativism.

In summary, deism is consistent with our intuition in the cases already examined. It views science as the one central tool that man can trust, and in fact is based on science. Rather than pure universalist, this world view permits the learning and development of our views from new sociological observations, but at the same time it gives us a concrete purpose in life, which atheism may struggle to do. Supplementing the forces of nature, reason includes ideas, causes, and most importantly, purpose. We as people are given a mission in life and the capability to use ideas to extend along this mission.

Deism provides a nuanced answer to our questions about the origins of morality. Morality is like logic in that there are laws of morality — but just not in the tangible way that we can observe in the everyday sense. The basic rules of logic are testable by observation, and they have held up untold times, although this does not necessarily mean that they hold in every situation. The basic rules of morality are testable using reason, together with information from the real world. The required input, which is subjective, makes reason like language in some sense, but logic dominates. However, it is far more complicated to test moral laws than to test physical laws, which means that moral laws are more likely to be challenged by new observations. We as people are in essence scientists operating not only in the observable physical realms, but also with dimensions in the spiritual realms. Much as we seek to discover laws in the physical realms, we also seek to discover laws in the spiritual realms.

There is thus an obligation to conquer the laws of physics and of reason. Someday, when the state of mankind permits it, we may more fully and totally explore the principles of art and philosophy and mathematics. To me, the latter in particular appeals. Yet due to the current dangers in our world, I see my immediate obligation as standing in defense of the principle that all are created equal, in service of the society that seeks to extend this principle to all mankind. Because we are all created equal, I believe that people the world over will eventually realize this principle given time and access to information. The way forward, the obligation, involves both serving as that shining city on a hill, as well as standing in defense of free societies that need our help. My own journey, leading from theism to atheism to deism, has enabled me to reach a better understanding of the meaning of life and my duty to it, and I have chosen. Many others have of course faced down this choice. Some have reached my same conclusions and can phrase it far more eloquently than I can. In the words of President John Adams:

“…I must study politics and war, so that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy…”

Universalism – a philosophical paradigm that decrees there is exactly one correct moral answer to any question.

Relativism – a philosophical paradigm that permits different groups to have different “correct answers” to a moral question.

Theism – generally, a religious paradigm involving belief in one (or more) God(s). Some definitions of theism are sufficiently broad enough to encompass deism. For the sake of clarity, theism in this paper refers to the belief in one God through divine revelation – i.e. somewhat stricter interpretations of the Abrahamic traditions. We try, in this paper, to use the less ambiguous term classical theism in place of theism to reflect this notion.

Atheism – a religious paradigm that entails no belief in any sort of God or supernatural being.

Deism – a belief in a God or a supernatural being motivated not by revelation but by observation of the world.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Zach explores the connections between religion, reason, morality, and our stewardship of future generations.

Where Does Morality Come From?

For most people my age, philosophy is something tantalizing, but always out of reach; referenced enough that we feel we should understand it, but so dense and abstract that we are convinced that we never will.

Peel away the terminology and historical schools of thought, and what remains is a cloud of questions that are usually uncomfortable enough to make us dismiss them.

In her book Moral Clarity, Susan Neiman underlines the concrete worth of such questions. The book examines the importance of abstract ideas (with chapters on happiness, reason, reverence, and hope) and how to use them to understand and form opinions on social issues. In it, Dr. Neiman addresses diverse concepts — from where morality originates to why the left experienced a decline in influence after the Cold War — all connected by one problem: how to defend the legitimacy of idealism. This winter, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Neiman about some of her own philosophical views and about Moral Clarity for this KidSpirit issue on ethics and morality. (Our exchange directly follows this article.) But before I corresponded with Dr. Neiman, I had to “chew and digest” her book in small parts with lots of thinking in between readings. In fact, I came to stuff my book full of Post-Its and notes; this attracted questions from friends and teachers and led to some of the most stimulating conversations I’ve ever had.

The experience I had while reading and discussing Moral Clarity validates the power of thought and idealism. Somehow, walking around with a book called “Moral Clarity” sticking out of your backpack is at times enough to start a dialogue. Twice, I asked my tennis coach, a history and Socratic Seminar teacher at our high school, for help understanding parts of Moral Clarity involving the Cold War. Whether on the back of a bus, in classes, or in a teacher’s office, the experiences left me with much to think about.

“This is the kind of stuff I really care about,” said a friend in my Latin class, “I wish I had more time to think about morals and things that matter that way.”

We wondered what it would be like to approach virtues and their social applications in the context of normal school classes. In school, discussion-based classes are uncommon; I spend most of my time transferring information instead of really thinking about it. The cycle becomes one of board to paper, paper to mind, and later, regurgitation on a test before restarting. Both ends of the spectrum exist; for every few classes with rehearsed discussions and dry lectures, there is one that weaves kids together and prods us to form and defend our opinions. But the school situation on morality and philosophical thought isn’t entirely hopeless. In fact, it was a school-related experience last year — my AP US History term paper, of all things — that initially inspired my interest in philosophy and belief in Dr. Neiman’s words.

It was a wintry weekend sometime near the beginning of January. Swiveling in my chocolate-colored desk chair for at least an hour, I traced zigzags of sunlight on my walls and flipped absently through papers on my desk to try to forget the reason for my self-imposed bedroom exile. Philosophy was the root of my troubles. It had always seemed to me like a lofty and abstract concept, tormentingly inaccessible — even more so now that I had started sketching out my term paper involving social Darwinism. The guidance I needed lay just one long-distance phone call away.

My late great-uncle from India, Dr. Govind Chandra Pande, was a respected author and historian of Vedic and Buddhist philosophy, somewhat of a family legend. I had never met him and was terrified to call. Would he laugh at my faulty, 15-year-old understanding of “right and wrong”? Eventually, I swallowed my ego and dialed. My great-uncle patiently walked me through some texts I might find useful and connected them to current issues. He showed me the importance of understanding the ideologies that nations are built on before confronting problems in the world. Most importantly, he defined “philosophy” for me as something real. Something as mundane as a term paper became a combination of philosophy, literature, sociology, and economics as each resource I found led me dendritically to another.

Susan Neiman’s introduction to philosophy was very different than mine, but her philosophical growth is fascinating. The words of Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir changed her life. “I immediately decided that was what I wanted to do, though I really knew very little and had no realistic picture of what that meant,” Dr. Neiman says. “But perhaps my lack of such a picture helped me to shape my own.” She transitioned from a life as a 16-year-old high-school dropout, involved in the political movements of the late ’60s and early ’70s, to a college philosophy student. After moving to New York City, completing her GED, and going to night school at the City College of New York (CCNY), Dr. Neiman transferred to Harvard to finish her education. Now, subsequent to being a professor at Yale and Tel Aviv University, Dr. Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum in Berlin — a “non-traditional form of employment” that she finds “more exciting than most of the alternatives.”

Dr. Neiman’s Moral Clarity has helped me appreciate the spiderweb of ideas that connect the past, present, and future. Personally, her beliefs ring true; the extent to which people downgrade the importance of idealism grows more apparent every day. A few days before writing these words, I found myself using material from Moral Clarity in a discussion on the legitimacy of the war in Iraq as an instrument of national policy. Dr. Neiman writes that fundamentalists and idealists are strikingly similar in one aspect: their desire for dignity and a greater “freedom” than the material world provides. An idea that connects two groups of people who seem so different ideologically is naturally appealing. Before reading Moral Clarity, I viewed terrorist groups and fundamentalists as alien creatures — people so unlike us that there was no hope in trying to understand them. “What,” a student in my history class scoffed during our discussion, “you want us to start negotiating with terrorists?” That’s the response I might have had before reading Dr. Neiman’s words, but now I think that instead of “negotiating” with terrorist groups, at least understanding their motivations is important.

Growing up, and even now, to a certain extent, I’ve been “the innocent one,” someone who is delusional because she still believes in the goodness of humanity and the potential for peace. My friends and classmates, 17 or 18 years old at the most, sometimes seem like they are budding cynics. It’s cooler or at least “more realistic” to see idealists as “lost” wishful-thinkers with their heads in the clouds. In the past, this attitude had made me question whether my beliefs were pessimistic enough to be sensible. I thank Dr. Neiman for showing me that idealism is not outdated and encouraging me to form opinion of others’ moral standpoints. After all, discussion and debate, only generated when people stop assuming that everything moral is relative, are some of the most enjoyable parts of philosophy. Susan Neiman, through Moral Clarity, has underlined my belief in the power of ideas and given me fuel for great independent thought and social discourse.

The following set of questions and answers are selections from my conversation with Susan Neiman this winter about Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists. The questions primarily involve the applications of an idealist morality in everyday life. In the sidebar to the interview section, you can find a list of recommended reading from Dr. Neiman.

Vidushi Sharma’s interview with Dr. Susan Neiman

Vidushi Sharma: What is “moral clarity”?

Susan Neiman: Moral clarity means the attempt to take moral questions seriously and find critical answers to them, rather than (a) dismissing moral questions ironically and saying that everything is relative, so there is no right or wrong; or (b) assuming “moral simplicity,” which is to suppose that some authority — whether religious or political — has settled moral questions once and for all and everyone else is wrong.

VS: How can people consistently apply their morals while making decisions in real life, often dealing with conflicting interests?

SN: Well that’s just the question, isn’t it? I am not sure one should worry too much about consistency, certainly not in the sense of having a system of rules which will guide you in every situation. Of course we have, and need to have, rules that guide us in general, because not every situation can (or need be) thoroughly analyzed. “Practice kindness and generosity,” for example, is a good general guide, but as you rightly point out, there will be conflicts where such a general rule will lead you nowhere, and that’s where you must stop and analyze: which interests are conflicting? In following my own interest am I hurting someone else’s?

One of my favorite suggestions is one of Kant’s. He says that most people go along by seeking their own happiness and worrying about other people’s virtue (or lack of it), but the world would be better if we just did the opposite: to think of other people’s happiness and worry about our own virtue. Of course even this is not an absolutely valid rule, but it is a good general guide!

VS: How can we avoid moral relativism while still encouraging the diversity of ideas in a society, some of which might seem to be irreconcilable?

SN: I think we have to bite the bullet and be able to declare, against current cultural assumptions, that human beings make moral progress and some ideas are just wrong. We — or most of us — have learned that it is wrong to oppress women, or minorities. There are societies who claim this is messing with their tradition — but remember that the Southerners fought a Civil War over that claim, and I know very few people today who would argue that owning slaves is just an idea or a tradition that should be respected for the sake of diversity.

VS: Are individuals obligated to help others in need? How can this be achieved while avoiding unwelcome and unnecessary interference in other countries as in the Middle East today?

SN: Another hard question but yes, I do believe that we, more and more in a globally connected world, have a responsibility to help others in need.

So many Americans, of every age, are woefully ignorant of how America is seen by other countries, although this doesn’t have to be the case given how easy it is to get information and news from other countries on the Internet. So here are a few more general pieces of advice: read at least one good U.S. newspaper every day and try very hard to get news from non-U.S. sources as well. If you don’t read a language other than English, the International Herald Tribune is pretty decent, but it still reflects an American perspective. Learning a second language is crucial — so many people in other countries speak at least three. It will allow you to get a perspective on the world that nothing else can, and will put you in a position to see the world from a less parochial perspective, which in turn will allow you to play a role in changing it from a universalist moral point of view. I learned at least as much from living and working in another country as I did from eight years of studying at Harvard and I think this is true for most people, as long as they truly live, i.e., study or work abroad. Most programs that are run by American universities that claim to allow people to study abroad don’t really do it — they permit students to have a good time in a bubble that doesn’t really get them out and testing their own cultural boundaries. Doing this is not only an important life experience, but one that is truly philosophical, because it will lead you to ask questions about your own assumptions about life and the world that nothing else can.

VS: What do you think young adults can contribute to society’s understanding of morals and ideas? Is it important for kids to have “moral clarity”?

SN: I hope this doesn’t sound condescending, but my first answer to the first question here is: get an education, a really good one. Force yourself to read good, hard books and ask questions about what is true in them as you are reading them. It is so often the case that young people try to reinvent the wheel, by coming up with arguments — for example, for relativism — that have been around since Plato, at least, while thinking they are the first to discover them. Of course young people should be thinking critically, all the time, and not simply take for granted whatever their elders (be they parents, teachers, or Plato!) tell them, but critical thinking is always enriched by knowing what people have thought before and struggling to understand it. It isn’t an accident that some texts have become known as classics, and are read as such all over the world

Second, I think it is important for kids to STRIVE for moral clarity, but not to assume they will have it. In fact, I think it’s fairly dangerous for anyone, adults included, to be certain they have moral clarity. Moral clarity isn’t a moment of instant enlightenment, but something you should work for all your life. If you do, you’ll have it sometimes, but even after 56 years of thinking about these questions there are still many times when I am not sure what the morally right thing to do is. Every situation and every dilemma needs to be thought through individually. That’s what moral clarity, as opposed to moral simplicity, demands.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Vidushi draws moral insight from the work of philosopher Dr. Susan Neiman — and converses with her about the issues that matter.

Moral Clarity: The Real-World Legitimacy of Idealism

We live in a world marked by its shift toward equality.

From absolute monarchs deriving their power through the Divine Right of Kings to the Declaration of Independence deriving its power through the consent of the governed, the history of our world is the story of this transition. This idea of the consent of the governed and equality has permeated the historical and political sphere, serving as the basis for every civil rights battle in recorded history.

With this concept of equality, these civil rights battles have made it universally accepted that the torture or slaughter of humans is morally repugnant. We empathize with the cruelties of the Holocaust, the devastation of the Rwandan Genocide, and the atrocities of the Bosnian War. We immediately denounce these acts as horrifying and immoral, proclaiming that all people deserve equal rights regardless of their race or cultural identity. We recognize these as massive violations of human rights.

Similarly, when we hear reports about animals being slaughtered in factory farms or about the horrors of animal testing, we all instinctively cringe in pity for these tortured animals. We say that maybe animals should be given a little more space, a little more food, and better treatment, though still not to the same degree as humans. Although we feel pity for these animals, hardly anyone instantly reaches the same conclusion that is reached for violence toward humans: that animals deserve equal rights.

Animals have perpetually been subjected to crimes that make even the most stoic feel horrified when they hear of them. In factory farms, which inject thousands of farm animals with hormones to maximize profit per animal, animals are cramped into such tight quarters that they often are unable to move. Factory farm owners frequently starve their hens for two weeks to coerce molting, killing up to 10 percent of these hens. Abused and starved, these hens, as well as other caged birds, are forced to regularly resort to cannibalism. Removing birds’ beaks without morphine or anesthesia is a regular practice.

Animals subjected to animal testing fare no better than their factory-farmed counterparts. In large manufacturing plants and reputable universities, animals are poisoned and tortured by research that often yields results that are unreliable or not useful. During these tests, mice are forced to grow tumors their own size, rats endure purposely induced seizures and crushed spinal cords, and pigs and sheep suffer as their skin is burned off. In less sophisticated trials, instructors cut open pigs and dogs, force plastic tubes down ferrets’ fragile throats, and burn pigs for up to 15 hours. Atrocities like these compel all of us, not simply staunch animal rights supporters, to call for a change in our treatment of animals — a change that ought to afford animals with inviolable rights.

Why should we ascribe these rights to humans but not animals? Despite the huge progress made in promoting universal human rights, the advancement of animal rights has remained disturbingly stagnant. Unable to communicate through words and ill-equipped to defend themselves against humans, animals have been consistently exploited and used for human ends, our ethical duties to them tossed into the shadowy backgrounds. By asserting that humans are more intelligent than animals, opponents of animal rights sometimes justify this cruelty toward animals by claiming that since animals are not as intelligent or rational as humans, they do not deserve the same rights.

Using this logic, however, many humans would not even qualify to receive rights since they do not pass this same test of rationality. However, although infants are clearly not rational and are completely dependent on others for survival, it would be morally repulsive to suggest that infants don’t have rights and can be subjugated at will. In the case of mentally retarded patients as well, it becomes apparent that these marginal cases for rational capacity make the distinction between those who deserve rights and those who don’t murky and undefined. Here, it becomes difficult to justify why infants and the mentally challenged deserve rights, but animals do not.

This distinction between animals and humans becomes even less pronounced when the capacities that make us human are examined. Recent studies indicate that traits thought to be uniquely human have been identified in animal species as well. Orangutan mothers develop close, life-long relationships with their offspring, chickens recognize and abide by various social hierarchies, and meerkats in the Kalahari Desert even sacrifice themselves to stay with ill family members. Animals are evidently highly complex creatures that have established complicated societies of their own. This profound complexity of a society built by creatures we deem to be less intelligent than us seriously calls into question the belief of our superior intelligence. When animals sacrifice themselves for their family, it makes it hard for us not to empathize with their compassion and see a bit of ourselves in them.

We should utilize examples like these as opportunities to realize the similarities, not the differences, between animals and us. By seeing ourselves in animals through their ability to love and protect, we will be able to take the first step in accepting that animals really aren’t so different from us at all and that they ought to receive the same rights as humans.

Treating animals more humanely while still refusing to recognize their rights is not sufficient either. Just as the settlers in America viewed natives as “noble savages,” humane treatment without rights nevertheless maintains the distinction between animals and humans and still justifies the belief that humans are superior to animals, leading humans to congratulate themselves for supporting humane treatment without realizing that animals already had a right not to be treated badly. The inherent worth of animals will still go unnoticed, their similarities to humans still ignored. These changes do not recognize that animals and humans are inextricably linked and thus deserve rights, not simply improved conditions.

However, even if animals are actually entirely unlike us, if we accept these differences as reasons to view us as superior and them as inferior, we lead ourselves down a path that justifies different treatment based on arbitrary differences, consequently justifying segregation. Similar arguments have also been used to justify the Rwandan Genocide and the Holocaust. Despite the fact that humans and animals will never be entirely similar, it is essential that we focus on what makes us the same rather than what makes us distinct.

In order to properly respect animals, we need to embrace the set of rights that animals are due. Factory farming, which causes excessive cruel and unnecessary pain to farm animals, should be abolished immediately and replaced with a system of open grazing, where animals are fed their natural diet without hormones and are given open space to roam, allowing them to exhibit their natural behavior and protecting their right to live longer and healthier lives. Though animal rights opponents have argued that these farms are not profitable and that these funds would come at the expense of humans, these arguments are simply untrue. Sustainable open grazing farms have been more common in recent years not only because of their respect for animal rights, but also because humanely raised meat is sold at higher prices, allowing these farms to generate substantial profit; in fact, in the New York Times bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, author Michael Pollan cites American farmer Joel Salatin’s sustainable farm as an example of how to both treat animals properly while simultaneously generating revenue.

Similarly, animal testing should be forbidden not only because of the outright violation of animal rights, but also because the majority of experiments result in failures that may actually harm human health if the results attained from animals and humans do not correspond. After analyzing more than 500 scientific publications from over a 10-year period, Andrew Knight, a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and the director for Animal Consultants International, concluded that results from animal testing were frequently either “equivocal or inconsistent with human outcomes,” and that only two out of 20 reviews of animal models furthered valuable conclusions, with one of those conclusions being questionable. However, non-animal experimentation research such as in vitro techniques, high-tech scans, and human simulators are far quicker, less costly, and more accurate than animal testing. With benefits amassing for animals and humans, especially the surprising lower costs, there is ample reason for us to allocate funds and resources toward the movement to respect animal rights and stop our gross injustices against them.

In contrast, vegetarianism is a principle that individuals must decide to adopt independent of codified law and restrictions. While refraining from consuming meat should be the ultimate conclusion of people’s moral compasses, the only way to recognize animal rights is just that: to truly recognize them. Prohibiting meat would simply impose our beliefs upon the populace, and although it may seem to achieve the ultimate goal, it would only force people not to consume animals, not to see that animals have the right not to be eaten. To reach this respect for animal rights, people must individually come to a consensus that animals are inviolable and then voluntarily become vegetarian. Though it may require a long process and some may not choose to become vegetarian for financial reasons or personal preferences, it is far better to have a few truly devoted to the cause than spawn resentment among the many for being forced to comply by this restriction. If simply presented with the facts, many of these people would realize on their own that becoming vegetarian is morally admirable as well as beneficial to their own health. In 2006, PETA cited several studies that verified that people with plant-based diets “have 2.5 times fewer cardiac events, including heart attacks, strokes, bypass surgery, and angioplasty” than those who ate meat, saving not only more money in the long-term from millions in surgical fees but also numerous human lives. If protecting one’s health is still not sufficient reason, non-vegetarians should at the very least focus on buying produce from local markets, where farmers raise and slaughter their animals using humane methods. At supermarkets, buying foods with “Certified Humane Raised and Handled” labels would also support the humane animal rights cause.

I’m not saying that we don’t have problems to solve on the human front, because we definitely do, but the unique atrocities that we have committed to animals justify our involvement to repair our past and present wrongs. We are perfectly equipped at this moment to lead the change. We’ve observed and even lived through previous rights movements, and they have taught us how to promote change, advocate equality, and urge activism for a movement. We just need to decide to do it.

For more information on how to help with animal rights causes, be sure to check out:

Paws
http://www.paws.org/get-involved.html

ASPCA
http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/?gclid=CKOhxYG5tawCFekaQgodWQE4sA

PETA
http://www.peta.org/action/default.aspx

Animal Legal Defense Fund
http://aldf.org/section.php?id=89

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Kimberley fights against the mistreatment of animals by advocating for their basic, universal rights.

It's Right to Give Animals Rights

Are we born with morality? Do we have a sense of right or wrong from day one? Or are we just blank canvases that society paints on? If put in an extreme situation, could an ordinary person grow up to be a psychopath?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, ethics are “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior” whereas morality is defined as “the extent to which an action is right or wrong.” Ethics are specific to one group of people, while morality implies moral principles that relate to human beings more generally. For example stealing in general is considered bad and killing people is considered worse. Being kind is good and self-sacrificing even better.

At the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University, scientists are running studies to see if babies have an innate sense of good and evil. What they do is they show babies of about six months of age a puppet show. In one show they have a puppet trying to climb up a hill, but he can’t get up it. Then another puppet comes along that helps him up. Then they show it again but instead of the puppet helping him, a different puppet appears and pushes the first puppet down the hill. They run through this cycle six to fourteen times, alternating between the puppet being helped by one puppet and pushed down by another. They then “ask” the infant to choose between the good puppet and the bad puppet. Around 80 percent of the time the infant will choose the good puppet over the one that pushed the other puppet down the hill. Of course the scientists have to consider tons of other variables that could be in play when the baby chooses a puppet, like what color shirt they are wearing or whether they think this puppet is cuter then the other, etc. Since the babies are around six months old, the scientists must also consider the extent to which the babies are already slightly influenced by society. In spite of these factors, and considering the results of related studies, researchers at the Yale lab theorize that babies do have an innate sense of good and evil.

However you don’t need puppets or science labs to notice these things for yourself.

I’ve interacted with a lot of babies in my life. I am the oldest cousin on both sides of my family and the first child born in my parent’s group of friends. Because I am the oldest I am also the designated babysitter. As long as I have the nature/nurture question in mind and the children to study, I might as well have my own Infant Cognition Center of sorts, here’s one observation I have made.

When I explained this situation to a friend, she said that the girl I had talked to might have stopped tormenting the cat not because she empathized with the cat, but rather because she didn’t want me to be upset with her. I agreed, but that only further proved my point. If she had noticed that I was upset with her she would have had to notice the emotion I was portraying in my voice and through the expression on my face. She would have understood how it felt to be me, angry with her and then not want me to be angry. So once again we have a young child who has empathy.

Based on my own experience and the research that I have read about I do think that we are born with empathy. That is, we are born with a very basic understanding of other people’s emotions. However, saying that we are born with empathy is not that same as saying that we are born with a sense of right and wrong, and honestly I’m not sure if we are. I do think, though, that empathy helps us from the second we are born to build our own set of moral standards. From day one we are watching how the people around us react to certain situations and from our social observations we get our sense of right and wrong. Maybe we are building on morals we are born with and maybe not, but either way empathy helps us build up our morals and develop as human beings.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Sofiy examines whether empathy is inborn or taught over time — and the extent to which it shapes our sense of morals.

Are We Born with Ethics and Morals?

I’ve been a fan of the Harry Potter series for years. I’ve read each book over 30 times, and I’ve read a handful of them in Spanish as well.

I was Dumbledore for Halloween one year and Hermione for another two. I’ve gone to the midnight premieres and I’ve joined a number of fan sites, discussing the intricacies of the series with people from all over the world. I’m certainly not alone in my obsessive fandom. I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t heard of the series, and know only a very few people who haven’t read at least one of the books.

J.K. Rowling hasn’t simply written a popular series, she has revolutionized the way that people approach reading. Kids who would normally be resistant to picking up a 500-page book end up devouring the series in a matter of weeks or months. J.K. Rowling has created an entire magical world within the series, full of countless characters, creatures and spells, as well as a community outside of the books, in which people discuss (and usually argue over) the books, dress up as their favorite characters, and even listen to music inspired by the series. It seems amazing that all this could have developed out of a humble children’s series. However, the Harry Potter books are so much more than that. They are the perfect tale of good vs. evil.

At only one year old, Harry is orphaned and left on the doorstep of his aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley. They begrudgingly take him in, mistreating him for years before Harry receives a life-changing letter that informs him that he is a wizard and that there is a spot for him at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Once there, Harry learns more about his parents’ death; he discovers that the dark wizard Lord Voldemort (or rather, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) has murdered them. Voldemort had tried to kill Harry as well, but his curse backfired, creating a lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry’s forehead and condemning Voldemort to a mysterious, half-dead state.

Harry’s time at Hogwarts doesn’t solely consist of revisiting horrible stories from his past. He relishes being away from the Dursleys, and for the first time in his life, he’s able to make friends. He’s sorted into the Gryffindor House, whose inhabitants are known for bravery. This sorting is very apt; from his first year at Hogwarts, Harry tries to be the hero, and save his friends and his school. Therefore, while the spells, classes, and other characters are fun to read about, and certainly flesh out the Wizarding world, it is clear from the beginning that the entire series is building up to a showdown between Harry and Voldemort.

The Harry Potter books were primarily intended to be a children’s series, and at first glance, the divide between good and evil may seem too black and white. Gryffindors are brave, represented by the majestic lion, while the Slytherin House common room, home to the villainous characters, is located in the dungeons, and the house emblem depicts a snake on a green background. However, after revisiting the books for a second or third (or fiftieth!) time, the ethical dilemmas appear much more nuanced. Harry and Voldemort both grow up as orphans, unaware of their magical abilities. They can both speak to snakes, and their wands share the same core. From the moment that Voldemort fails to kill Harry, their lives become inextricably linked, yet they continue on two opposite paths.

Spoiler Alert — Read this only if you’ve read all seven books in the series: As anyone who has read the series knows, Snape presents the best example of an ethically complex character. Harry never likes him, and as readers we’re conditioned to side with Harry. Additionally, Snape just seems dislikeable: he’s greasy and gross, and clearly dislikes Harry as his friends. While being mean doesn’t necessarily correspond with being intrinsically evil, in Snape’s case, it appears to. As the series progresses, we learn that he used to be a Death Eater, and that he was actually responsible for Harry’s parents’ deaths. None of Dumbledore’s assurances that Snape was truly on the good side could dissuade either Harry or us as the readers from believing the worst in him. Of course, all this changed after the seventh book. The chapter “The Prince’s Tale” shows that Snape does not truly support Voldemort and has actually been helping Harry all along. However, to say that Snape is a good guy isn’t fully accurate either. He helps Harry because of his love for Lily. If you think about it, this is a rather selfish motivation. Snape’s character shows that people aren’t either good or evil; most are somewhere in between. End of spoiler alert.

The Harry Potter books have a broader universal appeal than any other series that I can think of. When I started reading them with my mom in kindergarten, I loved the descriptions of the Quidditch game and Fred and George’s hilarious antics. As I got older, I became lost in the Wizarding world and the overarching conflict between good and evil. However, even as I rooted for Harry, I realized that he is not the perfect hero. He’s moody, impulsive, and self-absorbed. In short, he’s a teenager, and these flaws only make the story more relatable.

Not only can the Harry Potter series be enjoyed by people of different ages, it can also be read by the same person at various points in their life, and be appreciated on different levels. I’m sure that anyone who hasn’t yet read the series has a good reason, but I honestly pity you all! You must not know what you’re missing.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Elizabeth explores some of the ethical complexities and ambiguities in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Good and Evil in the Harry Potter Series

Teenage Paparazzo, directed by Adrian Grenier, is a documentary that follows a young boy who has taken up the strange (for his age) profession of being a paparazzo. His name is Austin Visschedyk and when he starts his paparazzi work he is only 14.

Through the film we see signs that he is a shallow, stubborn child, but after watching the documentary himself a year later, he realizes what kind of person he has become and undergoes some deep changes. However, the film is about much more than that. It focuses on the world of idolism, and the interwoven relationship of paparazzi, celebrities, and their worshippers. The most interesting aspect of the movie is its focus on the ethics of being a paparazzo and the exploitation of celebrities.

The film is cut into many different sections to try to get a 360-degree view of what a paparazzo really is, but the most interesting subject Grenier explores is the ethical standpoint of taking photographs, which are then used to make false, insulting stories. Grenier interviews many paparazzi and they all end up evading the ethical points of their lives, while stressing the fact that everything they do is technically legal. Whoopi Goldberg points out that nothing on the Internet needs to be proven. People can say anything they wish about celebrities, as long as they have a photograph (taken by paparazzi) that looks like proof.

The film involves an in depth analysis of “parasocial” relationships; for instance how we all feel we know celebrities in an personal way, even though we have never met them. Grenier focuses on how celebrity magazines have realized that humans need some sort of people to idolize. And if they can take these perfect seeming people (these “gods”) and show that they have the same problems that normal people do then everyone will feel as though they can personally relate to these famous people. Since the beginning of time humans have worshiped beings they viewed as ideal, and now through photography those beings are brought into our everyday life and their humanity is revealed.

This movie reveals a world that one might never get a glimpse of on a day-to-day basis. It also explores some deep, philosophical questions about the human mind and what it means to worship people to a point of breaking moral boundaries to get a photograph of them.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Charlie examines Adrian Grenier's "Teenage Paparazzo," a documentary focusing on the ethics of celebrity culture, tabloid journalism, and photography.

A Look at Life Through the Paparazzi

I stood, poised at my machine, my implement, my weapon, with my foot resting gently on the peddle, laying dormant for that one moment, but still quite ready to strike.

I toyed with the idea of slamming my foot down hard, as hard as I could, gunning the engine of this sewing machine, and racing through those last few stitches at the speed of an illegal drag race. I could imagine the crazed whirring sound that the needle made as it pulsed up and down and up and down at high speed. But I refrained, pressing my foot down gently and carefully, so to avoid injuring myself (needles are very sharp, you know) as I sewed. With that slight movement, I finished the last few stitches of my beloved garment at a steady gait. It was over before I knew it.

I removed the cloth from the machine, and looked at it. This was my piece, my creation. I felt majestic, almighty, and all-powerful, albeit slightly irrational in my fervor over fabric. This garment, a corduroy vest, was not my first piece nor my finest, but something about it awakened within me an enormous sense of accomplishment. Perhaps, it was the sharply pointed collar, my first ever, perched at the neck like a bird, or maybe it was the slight dip at the back, indicative of the design I had put into the piece. Or it was the straight, tight seams, traveling all around which caused me such pride. Who knows. Who cares. There, standing in my room, surrounded by little scraps of fabric in all shapes, sizes, and colors, hunched over a sewing machine, and completely oblivious to my piece’s modest attributes, I felt like king (check that, queen) of the world.

I held it, my vest — that seemingly great achievement up in the air, and looked at it, stared at it, displayed it for all the (empty) room to see. My delight was such that it could not be contained; it spilled out of my body in little shakes of the head, twitches of the arms, and tiny shrieks. I was so proud, so crazily, irrationally proud that I literally couldn’t keep all of that feeling inside my body, let alone inside my mouth. Naturally, I couldn’t help but smile. But this smile was of its own breed. I didn’t smile one of those smiles that you force yourself into, as a form of self-recognition and congratulation. I didn’t smile one of those smiles that serves only as a pale visible reflection of the tiniest happy feeling, only for the benefit of others. No, this smile was the embodiment of happiness, so full that my cheeks immediately began to hurt with the strain of it. The movement was involuntary. I couldn’t stop smiling. I was powerless in the face of my own achievement and boundless joy. And that instance of creation, and of elation, ultimately forged in me one of the most strange and wonderful feelings. At that moment, I was both supremely powerful, and supremely powerless.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Naomi describes being swept up by a unique and powerful kind of elation after painstakingly sewing a garment for herself.

Why Am I Sew Happy?

The river in the butterscotch moonshine curved through the mountains. A soft breeze rustled through the leaves of the pine trees. The lofty mountains surrounded the river, protecting her.

Fireflies sparkled in the branches, as did the stars in the sky. A light fragrance of some unknown Himalayan flower filled the air. As I stood facing the river, I knew this was it. I stood there staring at the river. The moon-kissed ripples danced about the river. The lapping sound of the water instilled a sense of tranquility in me. The sound had no rhythm, no melody. Yet it was of immense beauty. I shut my eyes.

I saw faces — familiar ones. I knew the surroundings, as well. There were lights everywhere. I could hear the sounds of the Puja dhaaks coming from a distance. There were people all around, in their shiny, colorful clothing. Today was Shashthi, the first day of the Durga Puja. People were out to visit the different pandals of the city, to see the idols of the goddess Durga. These people, I realized had no connection to the faces that surrounded me, faces that were in sharp contrast to the festive environment. These faces were tearful, yet bright. As they all wept, I felt a strong connection. You could call it love or maybe just an attachment. These were my friends. I had known their stories, their heartbreaks, their joys, their miseries for 15 long years.

I realized that we had become tied down together, not only by happiness but also by sorrow, by grief. Sitting on the same benches together; sharing food from the same lunchbox; whispering stories in the library; witnessing each other’s first loves; consoling broken hearts; dancing in the rain together, in the school courtyard; getting scolded by the teacher; the feeling of anxiety before the exams — all these were not just petty moments. These were stories with their own morals. We all belonged to the same storybook. Now that the storybook was coming to an end loneliness gripped each one of us. Amidst the crowds of excited people, dazzling fairy lights, the smell of candy floss, and the beats of dhaaks, we all cried together, for everything we had lost, everything that had torn us apart.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes. I saw my parents standing beside me. None of us spoke. We all stood, gazing at the river. Her flow was swift. She skidded and leapt over the enormous boulders that blocked her path. She was beautiful. I sighed. Life did move on, like the river. It is just these memories created with the people or the things we love the most that make us look back and reflect on how amazing life is. The storybook had indeed come to an end. But the story, I knew, would stay with me forever. With the river and the trees, with the mountains and the moonbeam, with the brilliant memories of my loved ones in my heart, I smiled, in spite of myself.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Prerna reminisces about the Hindu festival Durga Puja and mourns the closing of a chapter in her life.

A River and Memories

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Christina draws our attention to the futility of war and the danger of following orders without question.

Soldiers

Someday, I may not be physically next to you

And maybe, just maybe, your tears would roll out, just a few

Someday, this heart of mine, may not be beating

I won’t hold your hand in times of fear

I will be in the rain that the clouds pour

And I will be watching every mistake you make

I will make you sleep peacefully at night

I’ll be there when you pass out working

I’ll be there and I’ll watch you growing

I’ll be there hoping for you to be lucky

I’ll be there when you’ll be fighting cancer

I’ll smile when I see your glowing face

I’ll be gone, but I’ll still be everywhere.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Niti speaks from the point of view of a loved one, offering words of comfort and reassurance about their own eventual death.

After I Die

I received the most curious letter in the mail last Wednesday. It was apparently sent to a random address, and landed by chance in my mailbox….

To whomever the die is cast upon:
I know not your identity, nor your character,
But I know that which defines you,
For I know that you, as one of us, are a creature of Grief.

We are all newcomers to Grief —
Each and every time
It sinks its icy claws into us,
we feel its pain again, always new, always fresh.

Grief is not like a legion of scarlet-clad enemies on a battleground…
For however much we train in preparation for our inevitable clash with it…
Our armor will never be thick enough, and our shields will be polished up to a point
Where they are mirrors, and useful only to look upon the enemy within ourselves.

No matter how much experience we amass with Grief,
We can never anticipate where and how its strikes will land,
We can never lay down rules for it to follow…
And our constant struggles to control it are futile.

When Grief in all its terrible glory comes,
We know not how to fight it but with itself.
For in the moment, Grief is a flame that cannot be extinguished…
And a raging storm that extinguishes all else.

Grief appears in many different forms, many different places.
In ego, in selflessness, in fear, in anger, in hate, in…
In love. We can only put off Grief, let it build up for some later, distant moment,
When we sit by ourselves in a dark room, next to a window’s view of black snow.

Grief’s sword, though sharp, never inflicts fatal wounds —
No, Grief doesn’t possess that much mercy.
Instead, it leaves a hollow hole in one’s body,
An ache that never fully heals.

Grief is a visitor, stopping by each of our homes,
But this guest cannot be denied entry.
It comes and lies in your bed with you. And when it leaves,
its nightmares remain, trapped in the sweaty sheets.

If ever we prepare our defenses against Grief’s next onslaught,
We will find that Grief exists not only outside us, waiting to charge when our doors open,
But also in the most sacred chamber of our soul, locked within us…
Grief’s forces destroy us from the outside as well as the inside… it loses itself in our being.

Grief is a mathematical number without an inverse.
For that which declares itself the repairer of Grief’s wound — happiness —
Is merely a sham and a fake, and cannot exist without consequences…
There is no way back to the Identity of this set once we reach Grief.

I am truly sorry for that which ails you,

A Neutral and Unknowing Party in Your Conflicts

P.S. One last note, to sum it all up, Grief is like a double-length episode of an Indian soap-opera with songs from a new Justin Bieber album in it.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Akash presents a mysterious letter that seems to offer condolences for a deep grief not yet felt.

Letter to the Known

The quivering legs
Thin ebony hairs pulsing with fear—
Or was it apprehension?
Could it sense my desire, my disgust,
My repugnance?

Tender fibers enveloping
Member of order Araneae
Ancient creature,
Beloved deity,
Helpless arachnid

Its plethora of black beads
Reflecting the dim flickering fluorescence
Focused at an apex
Upon my judgment

Fist clenched
I clasp the ashen, chalked folds
And release the feral
Through the gateway between
Tame and unconquered
Through the doorway
To the wild

In a KidSpirit poem, seventh grade writer Sharon narrates the capture — and eventual release back into the wild — of a spider.

Through the Doorway

In the field where the tall grass sway’d,

Back in the days before “where” and when”

Between child’s pasture and future’s wood.

Springtime soothes all Mankind’s fears.

Pleased to sit lonely in frost’s icy bite,

Ah, they are comforted, hugged, and loved

Far in the future, in the woods, dark and thick,

But go, fledgling, future’s calling is quick!

Go forth, no slumber until the works done,

Be not lazy; with gifts you’re endowed!

In a KidSpirit poem, young writer Maria conjures the shifting, in-between stage that bridges childhood and adulthood in a series of rhyming couplets.

The Youth and His Fortune

Life is a run, through the mountains that curve and elevate

Pace and stamina are key, though you can go however you satisfy

On every turn, something new appears that you have to face

Whether it’s a small weed or a large bush,

You must face it, and suffer the consequences

Go through it, and get scratches across your knees

It’s what we live for, we do have to slow down at times

You just have to keep running till it’s time to walk

Keep pushing forward, until its time to pull back

Although know that you will always start up again

Along the way, we do indeed have to face obstacles that might make us fall

Nevertheless, keep in mind that once you fall

You will always get back up, and continue running

Eventually you will have to take a different path

You can make it your own, and follow what you truly believe

Don’t go a way someone else wants you to

It is without a doubt your life, and you can go whichever way you please

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Simi compares life to a challenging but rewarding run along a mountain face.

Life Is a Run

How do we live in accordance with our deepest beliefs and aspirations? Do we develop a moral sensibility as we grow or are we born with it? From start to finish, this issue takes us on a journey of inner exploration and asks us to consider where we stand in relation to humanity and the universe.

Ethics and Morality Group Guide

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